I was not overly active today, so decided I better hit ye olde treadmill to make up for it. It was fine. I seemed to sweat more than usual. The stats almost look like I forgot to fix my copy and paste, but my pace and distance were in fact identical to the last workout. BPM was up a little, but not a lot, and I burned off a few more of the million calories I need to go through to get back to my usual weight.
Baby (elephant) steps…
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:31/km (9:31 km/h)
Time: 30:04 (30:03)
Distance: 3.15 km (3.15 km)
Calories burned: 296 (284)
BPM: 141 (137)
I went to London Drugs today, to get things both trivial (bubble bath) and not (toilet paper). It was my second time there since the pandemic forced us all into “physical distancing.”
Most of the Lougheed Town Centre mall is closed. The only ones open are London Drugs, Walmart, and a couple of banks. Oh, and Tim Hortons. The food court is nominally open, but only for takeout–the entire seating area is taped off. Most food outlets appeared to be closed.
I walked to the mall, taking my usual scenic router, with a brief detour to Burnaby Lake, to see hoe many cars were at the Avalon parking lot near the dam. There were a fair number, though somewhat surprisingly, not as many as when I was there last on March 21. There were new signs up regarding physical distancing, including this one:
Also handy if you need to determine if you are about to be attacked by a bald eagle.
The unfortunate thing here is that much of the trail around the lake (including the part right behind this sign) is pretty narrow, so you can’t even get 2 meters apart, even if you walk along the edges. I guess as long as you don’t sneeze into someone’s face…
I also found this on the path leading into Burnaby Lake:
This angers me, because it’s not just litter, it’s putting others at risk. A mask is by design going to be covered with the germs of the person wearing it. It should be disposed of responsibly, and carefully, not tossed on the ground. Imagine this scenario:
Asymptomatic person wears mask, then decides to discard it on the ground because they are thoughtless and dumb. Minutes later a family comes along with a young child. The child sees the mask and immediately picks it up to exam it, because it’s “neat.” The (hopefully) horrified parents tell the kid to drop it, but it’s too late–the kid is now carrying the virus. The family returns home, where they live with their grandparents. The kid eventually spreads the virus to everyone. One of the grandparents, already in less than good health, becomes very ill and ultimately dies.
All because someone was too lazy and irresponsible to dispose of their mask safely.
Unlikely? Maybe. Possible? Absolutely.
Passing through Hume Park, I noticed a new sign aimed at my least favorite people, dog owners:
PSAs featuring terrible puns are OK by me
I find the language interesting. “Please keep your pet leashed to help keep out parks and trails open.” At first glance, this doesn’t seem to be related to the pandemic, until you realize they would never close the park because off-leash dogs were running around, so it’s totally about the pandemic and fears associated with having pets running loose and, I guess, potentially spreading the virus? I’m not sure if that’s possible, but I like the city giving it to dog owners, anyway, because I had my fill of off-leash dogs way back. I’m also guessing the signs went up after complaints were raised, which would also be good.
On the way to the mall, I encountered a fair number of people (it was another unseasonably warm and sunny afternoon), but managed to keep my distance without difficulty and enjoyed just being out in the sunshine. It felt good and for moments at a time I could forget everything else.
Then I get to a pedestrian bridge that crosses over Stony Creek and see this:
This is impressive in its simplicity and clarity, yet also terrifying in how it doesn’t actually mention the pandemic, other than the covid19 in the URL at the bottom. It’s like, “This is your life now. STAY APART.”
I didn’t pass anyone on the bridge to find out how well others know right from left.
Once at the mall, I was greeted by several signs related to the pandemic (safety tips and a list of the few open stores) and a giant hand sanitizer dispenser, which gushed sanitizer into my awaiting hands.
London Drugs is now set up for physical distancing, which stickers on the floor showing you where to stand at the checkouts. The checkouts have Plexiglas barriers to protect the cashiers–it’s like they’re suddenly inside the salad bar. The Plexiglas is thick enough that talking to the cashier feels a bit like using the Cone of Silence from Get Smart.
They also had a giant stack of baskets at the front of the store that had a sign declaring them clean and ready to use. Buggies were similarly arranged:
Technically the arrow should be pointing to the right, unless there are buggies under the floor.
It’s a lot trickier to maintain distance inside a store, because stores are not really designed to keep people apart. While ducking through aisles and avoiding others, I observed a phenomenon I noticed again later today when I went grocery shopping at Save On Foods. While some people clearly try to avoid others and some make at least a marginal effort to do the same, a small set of people appear to be making little to no effort to avoid others and several of these people brushed by me multiple times. The one thing they all had in common?
They were all wearing masks.
It seems some people may be viewing masks as some magical shield that means you no longer have to worry about anything.
These people are dumb. And they make me nervous, and make shopping even more unpleasant now than it already is.
On the way out I went to use this sanitizer station in front of the taped-off playground–which looks like an abandoned crime scene–but the dispenser was empty so I made note to note touch anything for the next 30 minutes. Fortunately the mall has automatic doors at the entrance.
On the walk home, a guy on the sidewalk passed by carrying a take-out bag from White Spot. He was wearing a mask. If that isn’t a sign of the times, I don’t know what is. It also made me want a Legendary burger.
On North Road another guy passed by wearing a mask, as well as a bike helmet. He was not riding a bike, or even walking a bike. There was no bike. I have no idea what was going on there. I kept walking.
As I mentioned, more of the “I can do anything, I’m wearing a mask!” people were at Save On Foods, but I was buying a ton of stuff (to minimize trips) and used a buggy, which is a great way to keep people from getting too close. Also it was kind of fun to toodle around the store with it. The last time I used a buggy while grocery shopping was…probably never.
I try not to think too much about it, but every time I got to a store, I wonder how long it will be before we can shop normally again. A few more weeks? Months? Longer? I’m not sure I’d want someone to tell me the answer now, if they knew.
I also took a few pics of things not related to COVID-19 while I was out. These will be posted separately, so they don’t get infected by this post.
Nothing too exciting to report on tonight’s workout. I started reasonably early compared to some recent exercises–it was only 9:30 p.m. when I hit the treadmill.
I wasn’t really feeling it, but sometime around the midway mark my mind started to drift and I muddled through, distracted from the sweating and exertion by various thoughts about various things.
Note the stats below are comparing today’s 30 minute workout to the previous, which was all of 7:28 minutes. The only interesting thing of note is that my pace after 30 minutes was the same as after 7:28 minutes, so I apparently had more gas tonight than I did the previous night.
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:31/km (9:31 km/h)
Time: 30:03 (7.28)
Distance: 3.15 km (0.78 km)
Calories burned: 284 (59)
BPM: 137 (123)
I went for a walk down to the park in the afternoon and unlike my previous stroll, I made sure to not have a few lingering minutes left on my exercise ring to haunt me through the rest of the day.
The rest of the day proved to be a rather lazy one, though, so I ended up with a shortfall on my move ring instead. I was at 90% by 11:30 p.m. and my mind was starting to click over into “too bad so sad” on missing closing all three rings. But at 11:45 p.m. I found myself donning my shorts and hopping on the treadmill, determined to close the move ring in one final burst of obsessive completionist effort. It happened at 11:55 p.m.
My exercise lasted 7:26 minutes and covered 0.78 km. The minimal stats are below. Hitting my move goal with minutes to spare gave me a perfect week on all three goals, and made me feel a tiny bit better about having a pretty lazy day overall.
Stats (note I am comparing to a shorter-than-normal 20 minute walk):
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:31/km (9:38 km/h)
Time: 7:28 (20.03)
Distance: 0.78 km (2.08 km)
Calories burned: 59 (163)
BPM: 123 (129)
Technically I didn’t wait until the last minute, but with a mere two minutes remaining on my exercise ring, I finally decided to do a treadmill walk…at 11:10 p.m.
I cut it a bit shorter than normal–down to 20 minutes–but I figured that might also provide some interesting info on how a shorter workout would differ, stat-wise.
First, I was slow, which one would not expect in a shorter workout. I think this was due to the late start and my body basically already switching to going-to-bed mode and being suddenly shocked into what-the-heck-is-going-on mode.
But more expectedly, my BPM was down to the lowest yet at 129.
Other than being slow, the stats are pretty much in line with doing two-thirds of the usual workout. And now I don’t have to go to bed cursing myself for leaving that tiny sliver of the exercise ring open.
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:38/km (9:29 km/h)
Time: 20:03 (30.04)
Distance: 2.08 km (3.17 km)
Calories burned: 163 (266)
BPM: 129 (136)
I went for a walk in the park today, just like in the old saying, and managed to get 23 minutes on my exercise goal. I later managed another two minutes at home, somehow. Maybe I loaded the dishwasher with extra vim. This still left me with a five minute exercise deficit and it would bug me getting that close and not hitting that particular ring. This is a good example of how the activity rings on my watch work to motivate me. I push a bit, then guilt does the rest!
I had two choices: go outside for a five minute walk around the block. It’s evening, cool and the chance of encountering others is small, or I could do a treadmill workout, which would be longer, harder and sweatier.
As you may have guessed, I did the latter. I felt a smidgen guilty (see?) having not been on the treadmill for a few days, so it seemed like it was time.
I felt fine to start, but was slow, improved in the middle, then began to fade a bit the last few minutes. I am out of shape. But getting better, bit by bit.
I’m not even going to talk about what happened when I tried getting into my size 30 shorts this afternoon (hint: it wasn’t pretty). I went out wearing my sweatpants. My oh-so-forgiving sweatpants.
Anyway, I’m glad I did the workout. As for the stats, BPM was good, calorie burn was lighter, reflecting the slower pace, but overall not bad.
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:29/km (9:19 km/h)
Time: 30:04 (30.03)
Distance: 3.17 km (3.22 km)
Calories burned: 266 (275)
BPM: 136 (137)
It’s my third day of being on the treadmill. The idea of running outside is acting as actual enticement to stay indoors, so it’s good in the sense that I am still doing workouts.
Tonight I started out feeling pretty good and fast (9:09/km pace) but by the last four minutes or so I was actually starting to feel blah and tired. I also am experiencing heartburn/mild acid reflux, possibly caused by stress, so while swigging water from my water bottle during the walk helped, it was still an unpleasant thing to endure on and off for 30 minutes.
The stats (BPM was down, so yay for that):
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:19/km (9:18 km/h)
Time: 30:03 (30.04)
Distance: 3.22 km (3.23 km)
Calories burned: 275 (306)
BPM: 137 (141)
I really don’t want to think how high this particular series will go.
Unlike the phantom workout reported here, this one was quite real–and extra late. I didn’t start until 10:40 p.m. after flipping back and forth on whether I wanted to do a workout (I knew I should).
And I was peppier, as the stats show below. I was also wetter, as I forgot to screw the cap of my water bottle on tight enough. Oops. Other than that, things went fine and I am pleased with the result. BPM was about the same, but pace was improved, so yay.
Stats:
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:18/km (9:29 km/h)
Time: 30:04 (30.04)
Distance: 3.23 km (3.17 km)
Calories burned: 306 (313)
BPM: 141 (142)
After a few days of being slothful and shamefully leaving my activity rings incomplete, I hit the treadmill at lunch today, despite the sunny weather, as I am still practicing physical distancing (no longer social distancing, because you can still yell hello to the other person on the sidewalk on the other side of the street).
I was a lot pokier than Monday’s effort, but not too bad overall. BPM was accordingly down. I listened to They Might Be Giants (brand new album) Flood and how can it be 30 years since that came out? I just checked and the two Johns are 59 and 60 years old. Time is weird and frightens me. But Flood is a good album for exercising.
Stats:
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:29/km (9:09 km/h)
Time: 30:04 (30.03)
Distance: 3.17 km (3.28 km)
Calories burned: 313 (328)
BPM: 142 (151)
If I go back all the way to the start of the year–you know, three months ago–I had probably heard about the coronavirus that was starting to appear in China, but it was otherwise just another news story in the background, like so many others.
Today, two days from April, I am in my third week of working from home, the place I work is all but locked down, businesses that aren’t “essential services” are closed, transit is ghost trains and empty buses, and it’s still ridiculously difficult to buy toilet paper, which is a fitting epitaph for this species if we manage to extinguish ourselves–maybe not with this virus, but perhaps with another.
For the first time I am keenly aware of sharing the sidewalk with others. Walks are now solitary affairs, with wide berths given to others. Runs have become stressful exercises (ho ho) in avoidance. Visiting friends has gone virtual. I look at Facebook almost every day (ew).
It’s awful. But enough about Facebook.
The news coverage of COVID-19 is constant and ever-present. You can’t do anything without seeing or hearing the effects of the virus (as I write this, 16 stories on the CBC News website are about COVID-19. That’s all of the stories, by the way). I wonder how long I’ll be working from home; through April seems like a safe bet (UPDATE, September 30: lol as the kids say. I was mega-wrong here. The college I work at is sticking with online courses for most classes, until April…of 2021. By then work from home will have lasted over one full year). Beyond that, it all depends on how under control the virus is. This is the first global pandemic in the age of social media and easy, world-spanning travel, so we are in a very real sense in uncharted territory now.
Some things haven’t changed. I get up in the morning and have my usual breakfast. I work out on the treadmill. I write on this blog. But even the regular things have that undercurrent of unreality to them because I know these normal routines are set against a world that is operating dramatically differently than it was a couple of months ago.
I’m curious about what sort of blog post I’ll be making in June, as we reach the middle of the year and the start of summer. Will things be starting to return to normal, or will we be settling in for longer, more permanent changes to how our whole society works? I don’t know. I’m not even sure I want to know.
But we’ll see in three months. Until then, interesting times.
Today started out pretty nice–the temperature got up to around 12 degrees, it was mostly sunny. A beautiful day to go for a walk or, in my case, a run.
I planned to go to Burnaby Lake, and was set to run clockwise, starting on the south side of the lake.
There were a lot of people on the river trail as I made my way to the lake. I feared the worst, but pressed on. At the lake so many people were crowding on the top of the dam that I actually stood back and waited a few minutes for them to clear out before making my way across.
I had to pee. The Jiffy John was, naturally, occupied.
I came out and there were groups of people on the trail near the parking lot (families and such), so I thought I’d walk to the road and actually start my run there, allowing me to go directly onto the Avalon Trail, which is wider and can more readily accommodate more people and the social distancing that is the vogue in these plague-filled days.
Sign at entrance to Burnaby Lake
The idea of maintaining 2 meters on a park trail is largely a fantasy because the trails are often barely that wide to begin with, and people aren’t terribly likely to traipse through the skunk cabbage just to comply. But still, it’s possible to at least spread out and do your best. Besides, Burnaby Lake isn’t exactly the seawall at Stanley Park in terms of popularity.
Except today it kind of was. I looked down the road to the Avalon Trail and it was packed full of people–more than I’ve ever seen, groups moving in both directions, with more feeding in from the trail connecting to it from the parking lot.
And the parking lot? Normally in late March, even on a nice day, the lot would have maybe a half dozen vehicles in it. Today they were parking in the middle, the lot nearly full.
Avalon parking lot. Some of these cars are not maintaining social distance.
The lot is rarely this full during the peak of summer.
Now, I get annoyed at having a lot of people on the trail when I’m running when there isn’t a pandemic. But during one? It’s dumb. These people are basically doing the opposite of what they should be. Instead of staying home, they are going out. That itself is fine. They are going to a park. Also fine.
They are all going to the same park and jamming the trails with huge crowds of people. This is not fine. This is, in fact, how you spread the virus.
Metro Vancouver is partly to blame here. In the city of Vancouver the Parks Board has shut all of the parking lots for parks and beaches. While that won’t stop everyone, you can see by the above photo that it may have stopped dozens.
I was initially looking forward to heading out because the forecast was for rain showers and while some would still be out no matter what the weather, a lot would have stayed inside and watched Frozen with their kids for the billionth time. But the weather changed and instead we got a mix of sun and clouds.
I left without running. The stress of having to push through the crowds was too much. I wouldn’t have enjoyed the experience. Ironically, partway on the walk back it did start to shower a bit, but too little, too late.
My next outdoor run will only happen if it’s raining even before I step outside.
The order is for some lighting, so nothing critical or anything, but it underscores how Amazon is being slammed by everyone with so many physical stores currently shut down. My usual experience is for them to deliver ahead of schedule, now two day delivery has stretched to four weeks.
Just another sign of the times. It’s hard to believe just a month ago the world seemed relatively normal (awful in a lot of ways, but still normal).
